Deadly Games

She tried again. Nothing. Whatever had happened, Stronghold's communicator wasn't picking up which meant one of two things: One, he was out of range or somewhere he couldn't pick up. Two, it was busted. Artemis sighed and stood up straight, looking out over the city. Remembering where he last called in, Artemis sent a message to the others to meet her at the apartment on Fallen Brook Way and fired her grapple. 

Artemis arrived in front of the building just as the rest of the Justice Patrol was arriving: Ultra Girl, Carmella, The Reaper and The Dude. "This is where we lost contact with him. Ultra, can you pick up anything?"

Ultra Girl focused and reached out with her telepathy. "Nothing, there's nobody in here."

"That doesn't mean it's empty. Alright, Carm, enter through the window on the roof. Dude, go through the back. Reaper." Reaper was already grappling to an upper level and was getting ready to open the window. "Do that. Ultra Girl and I will enter through the front door. I want this place sweeped clean. If you see anything, call the others. Ultra, keep everybody in mental contact. Agreed?" Artemis asked. 

"Right, let's go!" Carmella ran around the apartment and leaped up to the highest window and opened it up. Dude ran to the back and kicked open the door. Reaper slipped into the top floor and Ultra Girl and Artemis ran in through the front door"Anything?"

(Nothing up here.) Carmella reported after she and Reaper searched the top floor. Ultra Girl and Artemis split up, searching the ground floor. (Nothing. Dude?)
Dude zipped around the second, third and fourth floor before he found something. (Guys? I found a video tape. It says Play Me.)
(Wait for us.)

The team regrouped on the fourth floor.


Ultra Girl telepathically informed the team that she was readying a telepathic shield just in case the TV was rigged to blow or something crazy like that. "Wait, are you serious?" Dude asked. "It's more common than you would think." Reaper spoke up. "Great. Alright, let's see what's on this thing." Dude put the Video Tape in the VCR and pressed play.

The colored bars appeared for a few seconds before the screen turned to static followed by a man wearing a skull helmet and a trench coat. "Hello, Justice Patrol." Whoever he was, he was apparently using a voice modifier in his helmet like Reaper. "And how are all of you this fine day? I really hope that all of you have made it here. You might have noticed that one of you is missing. Stronghold. The big dumb brick of your little club. I assure you, he's still alive...probably. I have stripped him of his powers and I have him hidden away in a secret location to play with several friends of mine with both his own life and that of several civilians hanging in the balance."
Artemis' face was stone cold but her fist was shaking in anger. Ultra Girl played close attention to the video, trying to find any clues as to where he was but the wall behind him was pure white, showing nothing. Reaper took out a device and pressed a few buttons on it. The masked man continued. "You can call me: The Game Master. Because that's what this is: The greatest game you will ever play. You see I have been preparing for this game for a long time now and I can't wait for you all to play. I have civilians trapped in various locations in this city, all strapped to various life threatening devices. At each location, you will find a special opponent to square off with. Defeat the villain and save the civilians in x amount of time and you will be given a piece of a code. When all the pieces are gathered together and deciphered properly, they will reveal the location of your friend. But don't take too long though, I can't guarantee that he'll make it to the end all on his own."
"You sonnova bitch." Ultra Girl cursed.
"The map is in the drawer. Choose your locations wisely and let the games begin." The video changed to a mannequin wearing a storebought version of Stronghold's costume, both covered in blood. Artemis opened the drawer and pulled out the map.
There was five locations. Two of which were on completely opposite sides of the city, one of which was in old town, one in the warehouse district and the last at the docks. Outside, Reaper's and Artemis's motorcycles pulled up, having been remotely activated by Reaper. "I've got the left." Dude said. "Then I'll take the right location." Carmella said. Both of them had super speed so they could reach both locations quicker than the others. "I'll hit Old Town." Ultra Girl said. "It's not too far from here and I can reach it quickly with my TK bubble."
"Then I'm going to the docks. Reaper, you have the Warehouse District."
"Consider it done."
"Now remember, be very careful. We don't know what this psycho has in store for us. Keep a clear head and bring these bastards down. We'll meet up at the city square when we're done. Clear?"
"Crystal." The team said and split up, The Dude and Carmella running out of the building at super speed, Ultra Girl wrapping herself up in a bubble of telekinetic energy and flying out of the building, smashing right through walls and out of a window and flying over the streets while Artemis and Reaper leaped out of the building, got onto the cycles and drove off at top speed, their motorcycles roaring down the city streets.

Deadly Games

She tried again. Nothing. Whatever had happened, Stronghold's communicator wasn't picking up which meant one of two things: One, he was out of range or somewhere he couldn't pick up. Two, it was busted. Artemis sighed and stood up straight, looking out over the city. Remembering where he last called in, Artemis sent a message to the others to meet her at the apartment on Fallen Brook Way and fired her grapple. 

Artemis arrived in front of the building just as the rest of the Justice Patrol was arriving: Ultra Girl, Carmella, The Reaper and The Dude. "This is where we lost contact with him. Ultra, can you pick up anything?"

Ultra Girl focused and reached out with her telepathy. "Nothing, there's nobody in here."

"That doesn't mean it's empty. Alright, Carm, enter through the window on the roof. Dude, go through the back. Reaper." Reaper was already grappling to an upper level and was getting ready to open the window. "Do that. Ultra Girl and I will enter through the front door. I want this place sweeped clean. If you see anything, call the others. Ultra, keep everybody in mental contact. Agreed?" Artemis asked. 

"Right, let's go!" Carmella ran around the apartment and leaped up to the highest window and opened it up. Dude ran to the back and kicked open the door. Reaper slipped into the top floor and Ultra Girl and Artemis ran in through the front door"Anything?"

(Nothing up here.) Carmella reported after she and Reaper searched the top floor. Ultra Girl and Artemis split up, searching the ground floor. (Nothing. Dude?)
Dude zipped around the second, third and fourth floor before he found something. (Guys? I found a video tape. It says Play Me.)
(Wait for us.)

The team regrouped on the fourth floor.


Ultra Girl telepathically informed the team that she was readying a telepathic shield just in case the TV was rigged to blow or something crazy like that. "Wait, are you serious?" Dude asked. "It's more common than you would think." Reaper spoke up. "Great. Alright, let's see what's on this thing." Dude put the Video Tape in the VCR and pressed play.

The colored bars appeared for a few seconds before the screen turned to static followed by a man wearing a skull helmet and a trench coat. "Hello, Justice Patrol." Whoever he was, he was apparently using a voice modifier in his helmet like Reaper. "And how are all of you this fine day? I really hope that all of you have made it here. You might have noticed that one of you is missing. Stronghold. The big dumb brick of your little club. I assure you, he's still alive...probably. I have stripped him of his powers and I have him hidden away in a secret location to play with several friends of mine with both his own life and that of several civilians hanging in the balance."
Artemis' face was stone cold but her fist was shaking in anger. Ultra Girl played close attention to the video, trying to find any clues as to where he was but the wall behind him was pure white, showing nothing. Reaper took out a device and pressed a few buttons on it. The masked man continued. "You can call me: The Game Master. Because that's what this is: The greatest game you will ever play. You see I have been preparing for this game for a long time now and I can't wait for you all to play. I have civilians trapped in various locations in this city, all strapped to various life threatening devices. At each location, you will find a special opponent to square off with. Defeat the villain and save the civilians in x amount of time and you will be given a piece of a code. When all the pieces are gathered together and deciphered properly, they will reveal the location of your friend. But don't take too long though, I can't guarantee that he'll make it to the end all on his own."
"You sonnova bitch." Ultra Girl cursed.
"The map is in the drawer. Choose your locations wisely and let the games begin." The video changed to a mannequin wearing a storebought version of Stronghold's costume, both covered in blood. Artemis opened the drawer and pulled out the map.
There was five locations. Two of which were on completely opposite sides of the city, one of which was in old town, one in the warehouse district and the last at the docks. Outside, Reaper's and Artemis's motorcycles pulled up, having been remotely activated by Reaper. "I've got the left." Dude said. "Then I'll take the right location." Carmella said. Both of them had super speed so they could reach both locations quicker than the others. "I'll hit Old Town." Ultra Girl said. "It's not too far from here and I can reach it quickly with my TK bubble."
"Then I'm going to the docks. Reaper, you have the Warehouse District."
"Consider it done."
"Now remember, be very careful. We don't know what this psycho has in store for us. Keep a clear head and bring these bastards down. We'll meet up at the city square when we're done. Clear?"
"Crystal." The team said and split up, The Dude and Carmella running out of the building at super speed, Ultra Girl wrapping herself up in a bubble of telekinetic energy and flying out of the building, smashing right through walls and out of a window and flying over the streets while Artemis and Reaper leaped out of the building, got onto the cycles and drove off at top speed, their motorcycles roaring down the city streets.

Jackal

Stronghold settled on going left. He kept his eyes peeled for any potential threats but so far there was nothing big. He did however come to a door that was partially open. Walking cautiously, he nudged it open with the table leg, keeping himself braced for anything that could be inside. The door creaked open and Stronghold was greeted to an odd site. Laying on the ground was a bright, spandex suit with a red cape laying next to it. The cape had tears on it and the bright yellow spandex suit had a large hole in the stomach area. The left arm of the costume had a light blue glove laying next to it but the other did not. Both legs of the costume were cut off below the knees and there was no sign of a mask. There were old bloodstains covering the suit and there was no telling how long it had been here. Covering his mouth, Stronghold backed out of the room and closed the door and rested against it, trying to catch his breath. After a few minutes, he continued on, shaken by the experience. There were more doors down the hallway, each one opening up to a small cramped room, each one containing the torn apart remains of a costume of some sort placed in various positions. As he coninud, he was snapped out of his thoughts by the sound of maniacal laughter echoing out through of an open door at the end of a hallway. Stronghold backed against the wall and looked inside. The room was much bigger than any of the others and brightly lit. A metal cage took up the majority of the room, it had two doors, an entrance and an exit, and there was no way around it. Peering through the cage, Stronghold could see the source of the insane laughter holding his hand against the throat of a woman, she was tied up thoroughly and gagged, tied to a pillar with a small gray device laying beside her. Stepping into the room, Stronghold could see it was a bomb. He stormed inside. "LET HER GO!" He shouted. The man stood up. He was tall, taller than Stronghold and quite muscular but his face looked like a jackal or a hyena. He took in Stronghold and laughed again.

"I'll say it one more time: Let her go."
"Heeey kiddo. I'm the Jackal. Welcome to Level One."
"I didn't ask your name psycho."
"Awww, did somebody wake up on the wrong side of the bed? Nothing? Alright, fine, let's cut to the chase. See this girlie here? She's awfully close to this scary little bomb. When it goes off, she'll go all over the place. So you and me are gonna fight in this here cage. Man to man, no weapons. You have eight minutes to beat me and untie her before it goes off."
Stronghold set down the flashlight, table leg and wine glass and walked into the cage, taking a boxing stance. "I'll beat you and save the girl in three and then I want answers."
Jackal giggled as he walked into the cage. "Don't be so sure Stronghold. You can't save if you're bleeding on the ground."
Stronghold ran towards him only for Jackal to punch him across the face, knocking Stronghold to the floor. It was like a sledgehammer. He stayed on the ground for a moment in shock at feeling pain from an ordinary punch for the first time in forever. He reached up and felt his left cheek. "Annnnd he's dooowwnnn!" Jackal pumped his fists in the air. Shaking his head, Stronghold got up, ready to go again. Jackal kissed his fists and swung at him again. Stronghold ducked hi punches and then punched him across the face twice. Jackal recovered however and gave him a straight punch to the face, making Stronghold back away.He wiped the blood from his lip and ran forward, throwing punches at Jackal who avoided the punches and pulled back his own. Seeing it coming, Stronghold punched at the same time, a cross counter. Both of them fell back. Jackal wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "You little s-t!"
Stronghold didn't even waste time talking or wiping his mouth. The moment he recovered he charged the psycho head on and jump kicked at his stomach only for Jackal to grab his foot and flip him. Stronghold yelled out as he hit his back hard but nevertheless powered through it and leaped back to his feet. He ducked under a punch from Jackal and punched him hard in the ear and then followed it up by grabbing him and tackling him across the cage and against the metal bars and began punching his stomach repeatedly as Jackal tried to block him. Suddenly, he grabbed Stronghold by the back of his costume and swung him against the metal bars and then punched him down by hitting the back of Stronghold's head and began stomping on him. Stronghold put his arms over his face but Jackal just continued attacking him, laughing all the while. As he raised up leg for a very hard stomp, Stronghold seized his chance and  grabbed his leg, struggling with him and pushed him away. Jackal stumbled but caught his footing and watched Stronghold get up. Stronghold ignored the pain in his arms from blocking the stomps and rushed him, taking a punch in the face just for the chance to grab his hand, grabbed his other arm by the wrist and kneed Jackal in the groin and then again before pulling his head up the hair and giving him a very hard punch right in the face, breaking his nose. Jackal backhanded him across the face, making Stronghold let him go. The two glared at each other and just went on the attack, both of them going on the attack punching each other across the face and in the ribs, wherever they found a spot as they slugged it out, both of them spitting blood from the very hard punches and split lips. However, Jackal found himself being driven backwards slowly and then after another hard punch Jackal was knocked to the ground. Stronghold pulled his foot back and gave him a very hard kick in the face, knelt down, pulled him up and then gave him a brutal haymaker punch across the face, dropping him. Stronghold gave him another kick in the ribs before backing away. He had bloody cuts and bruises on his face and body but he was the victor. No time to sit down. He ran to the door, kicked it open and ran to the girl. Stronghold got behind her and began frantically undoing the knots, trying his best to ignore the sheer pain he was in. The bomb continued to count down. Four minutes left. It took him a minute to get each rope. He untied her arms and body and then ran around and got the ropes off of her legs. With no time to get the gag off her mouth or the rope of her eyes, he pulled her up and ran with her. Stronghold and the girl had almost gotten to the other side of the cage before the bomb exploded with enough force to make them both fly through the air, both hitting the ground hard and Stronghold covering the girl's body with his own the best he could. The blast was deafening and Stronghold's ears were ringing. The air was hot with the fire from the blast. Groaning, Stronghold picked himself up and pulled the gag and blinds off of the girl. Getting a better look now, it was apparent that girl was in her mid-teens with long black hair and dark green eyes. He also noticed that the girl had been viciously beaten prior to her rescue.
http://fc00.deviantart.net/fs71/i/2010/335/3/6/shut_up__woman__by_xredxpiratex-d340xcd.jpg
It made him want to beat that psycho down all over again. Stronghold rested against the wall and forced a smile. "Hi. I'm Stronghold."

The Games Begin

: Stronghold's vision was blurry, he felt...drained, no, not drained....tired. As if he was waking up from a deep sleep. The last thing he remembered...was chasing a thief down an alleyway. The thief had fled into an old run down building and he followed in and then....and then....he closed his eyes as he tried to remember. It eventually came back to him: Gas. He remembered coughing, the woman holding a mask to her face as she stood, watching him with cold eyes, not moving, not blinking, just watching as his vision went dark. And now here he was in a dark, cold room with flickering lights, looking up a stone ceiling. He glanced around the room. Wherever he was, it was old. There were old bloodstains on the wall....a torn up old bed....bars....bars? Matthew got up slowly. He was in...a prison. An old one.The bars were torn apart, as if somebody had forced them open. The floor was green, hard, steel.

 Standing up, Matthew placed his fingers to the comm in his right ear. "Artemis, Ultra Girl, come in. Guys do you read me?" Nothing. In fact, it felt like it wasn't even there. His glance turning to the bed, Matthew walked over and crouched down and discovered why: The ear comm was laying on the bed, broken in half. He looked at it, sighed and put it in his suit's pocket. "Wonderful."
He reached out to one of the bars and gave it a tug. It didn't give. Another, another. He put his foot on the bar and pulled. Nothing happened. Stopping, Matthew stumbled backwards, staring at his hands. He gave the wall a kick. Nothing. His fears were confirmed: For whatever reason, his powers were gone. Matthew sat down. This was bad. He was alone in God know's where, his powers were gone and he had no way to contact the others. Matthew sat there for a few moments before sighing, standing up, taking a deep breath in and exhaled. Well, he wasn't going to get answers just sitting here and Dinah had been training him for a reason.
Deciding he may as well get a move on, Stronghold cautiously stepped out of his room. He picked up the empty wine bottle and a broken chair leg. It wasn't much, but he figured it would be best if he at least had some weapons rather than none.
On the ceiling, camera's watched his every move.
His footsteps kicked up a little bit of dust and echoed around him. The place was quiet....very quiet. The only other sound besides his foosteps and his own breathing was the sound of the lights flickering on and off above him.
 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BYvhwQs-X4Q
Some of them were already off, plunging the area into pure darkness for a few brief seconds before the lights would be on again.
Stronghold turned around and looked around to make sure that nobody was sneaking up behind him. There was nobody there. He turned back and kept going. Stronghold thought about who could be behind this. Quantum? How would she set all this up and why not just kill him? Bulletproof? No, not her style. Zero G was right out. Aurelius? Maybe. But again, the question was why? Nemesis? Stronghold shivered. He'd seen the news reports, he knew about the things that lunatic did. She was the type to do a sick game like this and if it was her, he could only pray that his friends were safe. As he continued down the hallway, he noticed the various empty cells, some of which fairly clean and others were either covered in long dried blood, had hand prints on the walls or had the beds torn apart. One of them had markings on the wall, as if somebody was counting down days. There were too many to count. Matthew soldiered on but eventually the hallway got too dark to see. He started feeling along the walls when his foot hit something. He cautiously reached down and picked it up, running his hand along it while holding the bottle between his fingers. A flashlight. It didn't take long for the truth to hit him: Somebody had left this there. Somebody was definitely playing a game with him. He tapped it a few times and then turned it on, illuminating the darkness. And what should he see first but a large shelf of porcelain dolls, staring right at him. Stronghold jumped and took a moment to gather his wits. "It's cool....it's cool...they're just dolls....just....dolls." Taking a closer look, they were even creepier. The dolls themselves were fairly normal except for two things: The first is that all of their clothes looked crudely sewn together from several other pieces of fabric, with no rhyme or reason, giving them frankly bizarre outfits of various types and colors. The second was the eyes. Now, dolls were creepy enough but.....he couldn't place it, but there was something off about the eyes. He reached out to touch one before pulling back, figuring it was just nerves. Continuing on, he came to a cross path: A left path and a right path.

Stronghold vs Game Master: Story Info.

The Hero

Matthew Maximilian, Stronghold. A Superhero.

The Villains

Game Master

The Slashers

The Jackal

The Humanitarian

The Clown

The Soldier

The Setting

The Plot
Stronghold awakens in an abandoned underground prison with no way to contact his team and with his powers mysteriously missing. Alone and powerless, he must rely on his wits and weapons to survive. As Stronghold struggles to stay alive against madmen and death traps, The Justice Patrol frantically searches for him. Who is the Game Master and why is he doing this? The answers will be revealed in the story.



Music